Big Bob's Beepers
Big Bob's Beepers is Big Bob Pataki's pager emporium. The business seems to be largely his creation (due to his name being in the store's name) and is his main source of income. The fact that the Pataki household, throughout the series, seems fairly large and well-furnished, points out that the business is reasonably productive, due to the beeper's then-relatively high price. Big Bob is the sole manager and head of the business, and there are only two people who have seemingly had any sway within the store's management: Big Bob’s associate Nick Vermicelli, and on one occasion, Big Bob’s wife Miriam Pataki. The store seems to be the one thing that Big Bob is passionate about, as he is constantly attempting to expand it, at the cost of areas that are important to the kids, ("Save the Tree") or even the living places of the people who live around him (Hey Arnold! The Movie). He also seizes every possible opportunity to promote it ("Spelling Bee", "Runaway Float") and add more people to its clientele. However, despite the relatively successful nature of the business, Bob doesn't appear to be as good of a businessperson as he thinks he is: his aggressive, expansionist, mercerany methods and client-unfriendly policies ("Big Bob's Crisis") really don't seem to help the business beyond it's only known location seen in the series and even seems to be holding it back (to a certain extent at least). Surprisingly, when Miriam took over the business when her husband was injured in "The Beeper Queen", she proved to be a considerably better businessperson than her husband: she was able to close important deals, form valuable alliances and come up with much better, more creative ways to promote the store and its products. A massive mall store called Big Bob's Super Beeper Emporium was to be this store's next generation incarnation, once Future Tech Industries demolished Arnold's neighborhood and built a futuristic mall. However, when Big Bob learned that Scheck did not plan to uphold his end of the bargain, and instead gain control of the store, the deal fell apart. In Hey Arnold! The Jungle Movie, the business doesn't appear to be doing that well, since with devices like cellphones becoming much more mainstream and affordable, pagers have become increasingly obsolete, and Helga's dad apparently refuses to get with the times. It's also implied that Helga and her family are actually now living in the store, as indicated by: *Bob wearing a bathrobe while getting the morning newspaper at the store's entrance. *Their mailbox being outside the store. *Bob and Miriam's cars being parked in the store's driveway/parking lot. *There being a living room of sorts inside of the store, with two sofas, a lamp, a piano and a rug, combined with cardboard boxes acting as tables. *The sign at the front of the store is very worn down. Its hinted that after the events of the Jungle Movie, Bob has started selling cellphones instead of pagers (or is at least selling cellphones in addition to pagers). Category:Locations